Unsung Hero: Ashley
by Scrat and Jidders
Summary: I wanted to ask for a gun or a knife or something to defend myself. It sucked being defenseless and any damsel dreams I had were effectively killed.


**Eleventh Exchange**

Fandom: Any  
>Theme: Unsung Hero. Find a character that is overlooked by fandom and cannonically by the other characters and write a story that highlights them.<p>

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><p>When she had been nine years old, Ashley asked her parents about karate lessons. Her mother hadn't listened and her father couldn't see the point. Mumbling something about being a girl, he turned to ask her mother if she thought his speech was too long.<p>

Her interested waned for a couple of years. Then her father decided he was going to be a senator and that meant moving to Washington DC. She moved schools and ended up making friends with a girl who participated in the junior gun shows. Her friend took her with once and Ashley couldn't sit still the entire ride home. Sally clutched the second place ribbon and they made up stories about how in next years competition, they would tie for first. When Ashley asked her father about learning to shoot a gun, he had scoffed and her mother was beside herself in anger. Sally wasn't allowed to come over anymore and Ashley was forced to go to church for the first time in years.

For her fourteenth birthday her mom took her to the mall and told her she had five hundred dollars to spend. When the knife display caught Ashley's eye, her mother grabbed her elbow and rushed off, saying something about a sale at Victoria's Secret.

By the time Ashley was seventeen and applying for college, her father was in the middle of his campaign for presidency. The one thing she looked for was distance from home, annoyed at the stress from the campaign and tired of being ignored. She didn't know what to major in but she wanted a dorm room and the college experience. When she received acceptance letters, her parents refused to pay for any school not on the East coast and so she went to Massachusetts, figuring it had to be far enough.

The first thing she did upon arrival was sign up for fencing lessons. She figured it was traditional enough her parents wouldn't stop paying for college but athletic enough that she might finally feel some independence and strength. The first two weeks were focused on drills and forms and Ashley's excitement rose as the class got smaller. When she accidently let it slip to her parents over a phone call, it turned out not to matter because her father was too busy watching the news – they had been doing a special on him as a presidential candidate. The next day in lessons they were finally allowed to fence and she went to bed with three large bruises.

She spent the week of election hiding, hoping no one made a connection between her and her father.

By the end of the school year, Ashley had gained bodyguards and lost three friends. A potential boyfriend had been scared off and she found herself surrounded by people who praised her hair and her clothes and her smarts within minutes of meeting her. Never having been particularly stupid, Ashley threw herself into studies and regretted that fencing hadn't fit in her schedule.

A summer of politics and smiles and being a happy family made Ashley all the more thankful to escape back to college. It was on one of her relatively normal trips back home that year that her bodyguard drugged her.

Waking up on the plane, sick to her stomach and handcuffed to the armchair, actually sent a jolt of excitement through her. How many nights had she ignored homework to read fantasy novels? To read the older tales, where females were damsels in distress and males wore shining armor?

Then the plane hit turbulence and she realized she was being kidnapped. She began throwing up and someone was injecting something else into her and the memories blur to nothingness.

After it was all over and she was home safe again, her therapist recommended writing it all down in a journal when she refused telling him what happened. She glared at him but accepted the black leather journal and pen, careful to tilt it away from him.

_Dear Journal,_she began. And stopped. It felt silly and she didn't really want to accept what happened. She looked up at the therapist, but he simply gestured at the journal again so she sighed and started writing.

_I was kidnapped. I'm the president's daughter, so I suppose it's not unexpected. But really, can you get any more cliché? It was my body guard that did it. Drugged me and then traded me for money I suppose. I don't really know._

_I woke up on a plane and threw up. Then was drugged. Then woke up in a car and threw up. Then was drugged. Then woke up in a room and threw up. It was pretty sucky. When I woke up in the room at least food and a bucket was waiting for me. I guess they understood what was likely to happen. +5 points to the bad guys._

Ashley looked up, giving her fingers a break. She hadn't written much, but she was used to typing. Her therapist frowned at her and Ashley rolled her eyes.

_My therapist is stupid. He's getting paid to watch me write in a journal. This is stupid._

Ashley stopped again, tapping her pen against the page, trying to figure out what to write.

_I know as an inanimate object, you don't need clarification, but I had always dreamed of adventured filled with epic romances. With damsels in distress who were never hurt and knights in armor who never failed. Getting kidnapped – it sucked. Seriously. One moment on my way home and the next in a country I didn't speak the language of. I was given terrible food and almost constantly sick. About six days after waking up, I was drugged again and moved into this tiny spare room. They hadn't even bothered to clear out the stuff already in the room. I had to be content with a bag of questionable food, a single water bottle, and various boxes and barrels covered in dust. And the floor was stone. _

_For the majority of my kidnapping, I was left shivering and starving completely alone. No one came in to take pictures or brag or anything like the training (it was mandatory what with me being the president's daughter) said they would. For the first three days any time I heard footsteps I stood next to the door ready to blindside them with a plank of wood. They just kept walking._

_After the third day I was too hungry to stand. The door was locked and no matter how I pounded and yelled, they didn't seem to care. I slept a lot. When they came in to drug me I was only half awake._

_It's the first time in my life I went days without eating. _

_Once I moved locations and got more food, I tried to be more alert. But I had a constant headache and was terrified and the fact I had taken fencing didn't make a difference – I felt weak. I guess I was also lucky at this point. I was only stuck in the room for a day when Leon showed up._

_Leon… he saved me. He was amazing._

_I wanted to ask for a gun or a knife or something to defend myself. It sucked being defenseless and any damsel dreams I had were effectively killed. But common sense stopped me. I could have demanded a weapon, Leon may or may not have given in, but what the fuck do I know? I can't even hold a gun properly. And every weapon he might have given me would have been one less for him._

_It sucked. I mean. Running behind him, biting my lip in fear, ducking or cowering in corners while he cleared an area or scouted – all I could think was why didn't I push harder? I asked mom and dad so many times for self-defense lessons but they said no and I was like, okay then and let myself be distracted._

_Some pretty terrible shit went down too. There was this Spanish guy – he saved our lives and died in the process. And at one point, this parasite inside me – which is now gone thankfully – allowed this bastard to control me. But Leon saved me._

_I'm not ashamed of being kidnapped – I didn't have control over that. But after, during the rescue. Being useless? That shames me. I whined and complained and did nothing to help. I mean, I understand I was hungry and thirsty and terrified and inexperienced – a civilian. But I think those books I used to read, with the damsels and knights, they had it all wrong. _

_I might have just lived the life of a princess being rescued, but there's nothing in this world that could get me to sigh happily and ask my rescuer to marry me… though I did ask Leon out. He turned me down. I'm actually kinda thankful for it._

_Besides. It wasn't all terror. At one point, when I wasn't getting captured or cowering so Leon could do his thing, I had to go it alone. It wasn't for long, maybe half an hour, but I killed a zombie myself. The terror, all that fear, it was still there but the elation, the excitement… it was so much more powerful._

_I dunno. I guess this journal thing wasn't too terrible. Getting it all out – I feel better about it all. After all, I might not have saved myself, but I didn't make it difficult for Leon. I didn't faint. I didn't prove completely useless. _

_And besides, I'm never gonna be the damsel again._


End file.
